Here’s Why Your Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Could Burst into Flames

A little over a week ago, we reported about an incident where a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 burst into flames while charging via a USB Type-C converter.

While there was little to evidence to claim that this issue was indeed set to cause havoc with respect to the sales of the Galaxy Note 7 phablet, the latest events suggest that the Korean tech giant is wary of the damage the fault could cause to its efforts to beat the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in terms of sales.

The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are already doing great in the market, with stats indicating that Samsung has been leading Apple’s iPhone 6S and 6S Plus in terms of sales for the past two quarters. With Samsung Galaxy Note 7 expected to continue this successful streak, the news of the company opting to recall the faulty Note 7 models could have denting effects on the company’s 2016 revenue.

Nonetheless, the question current Samsung Galaxy Note 7 owners might be asking themselves is why would an $850 flagship burst into flames when charging or rather, what can be done to prevent the phone from catching fire?

For starters, you should know that phones make use of lithium-ion cells. Even though these battery units are great when it comes to powering phones, they are as equally vulnerable to catching fire thanks to the huge amount of power and electricity that goes through them. With this in mind, it is easy to get the battery extremely hot in certain situations.

Of course, high battery temperatures can be as a result of external conditions or maybe conduction from an internal source, probably a component inside the phone. It gets even more interesting as the battery itself can be the source of overheating. In essence, the battery cell issue affecting the Galaxy Note 7 is as a result of the battery heating within itself. But what causes the internal heating of the battery?

One major cause of this issue stems from the battery management system that is responsible for keeping tabs on the electrical current that flow through the battery unit. This system further communicates with a chip inside the phone, telling it to stop charging the phone once the battery is full. If either this system or the chip has a problem, the battery will enter an overcharge state. This means it will keep on charging even when it is full, thus becoming more unstable and the result could be a Galaxy Note 7 that is burning in flames. This comes without any kind of external heating.

Now that Samsung has made a choice to recall at least 35 units of the Galaxy Note 7, it is obvious that the issue is as a result of the hardware used and has nothing to do with external sources. The question is will this affect the sales of the Galaxy Note 7 against the soon-to-be-announced iPhone 7 Plus? Let’s wait and see, but honestly, Samsung will have a lot of convincing to do.